My five-year-old, aka the Schmoopette, and my two-year-old, aka the Schmoopadoo, are heading off to college kindergarten and preschool in just a couple of weeks. While I trust my daughter to distinguish what's hers and what's not, my little one has a speech delay and sometimes has a hard time communicating. Since his two-day twos program will be full of fellow grabby tots, I (and every other parent at the co-op) have been asked to label ALL his belongings.
Enter Mabel's Labels. I bought labels from them ages ago when the Schmoop went off to pre-school, but since then used a Sharpie or, more often than not, plain forgot to write anything in the older kids' backpacks, lunch boxes or clothes. It's no surprise, then, that the kids occasionally came home with the wrong coat, hat, water bottle or pencil box.
If my older two, who could talk circles around the chattiest of chatterboxes (I know, because I am one!), lost track of their stuff or didn't speak up when they were given someone else's things, how much more is my quiet two-year-old going to lose his little school supplies? But that's not gonna happen, because we have the Ultimate Back to School Combo, which comes with:
- 50 Tag Mates™
- 40 Skinny-Minis™
- 16 Shoe Labels
- 2 Teeny Tags™
The Teeny Tags are perfect for pencil or lunch boxes; the shoe labels are self-explanatory and will especially come in handy for the Schmoopette's ballet slippers and tap shoes; the Tag Mates go on clothing tags; and the Skinny Minis can go anywhere from books, pencils, crayon boxes, Tupperware, water bottles, and you get the picture. Now I can send the Schmoopadoo to preschool with one less worry on my mind. But I'm fairly sure even that peace of mind will not keep me from crying when I drop him off that very first day. I predict it will be the first-timers and me crying, with the middle-child moms laughing at all of us!
The lovely folks at Mabel's Labels have agreed to send one of my lucky readers their own Ultimate Back to School Combo (retail price, $44). To enter, leave a comment by midnight E.T. on Friday, Aug. 27th. Share a time your kid accidentally lost something or came home with a classmate's belongings, because items weren't labeled. Or, if that's never happened, go to Mabel's Labels and tell me which design you'd choose for your kid's combo. One entry per person. I'll (randomly) choose a winner on Saturday, Aug. 28th.
Full disclosure: I received two review sets of the Ultimate Back to School Combo for the Schmoopadoo and the Schmoopette, who start pre-school twos and full-day kindergarten in two weeks. However, anyone who has ever met me (or any other movie critic, for that matter) knows that seeing or getting something for free doesn't mean I'll like it!